He saw the pickup truck from a few blocks away, coming from the east. It was driving faster than it should have been, but that wasn’t exactly rare in Mosely, and there weren’t many pedestrians to worry about. It came closer and actually seemed to speed up a little, and years of training flashed through Jericho’s mind. Explosives. Trucks ramming through roadblocks, pipe bombs, snipers. It was all from Afghanistan, not Montana, but did that distinction apply anymore?
Then he saw the driver and began to relax, at least until Wade drove the truck over the curb and up onto the battered lawn, jerking to a stop only a few feet from Jericho and the steps. There was none of Wade’s usual languid grace as he threw his door open, jumped out, and jogged around the hood of the truck, his face set in an expression Jericho had never seen before.
“They’re on their way here,” Wade said. His gaze shifted to something over Jericho’s shoulder, and Jericho turned to see Kayla, Hockley, Montgomery, and Garron striding out of the building, clearly drawn by Wade’s dramatic arrival. Wade spoke to Jericho, but loudly enough for the others to hear. “You were right. The bullshit in Helena’s a distraction. The real attack is coming here; they want to break their boys out of your jail. They think it’ll be a huge victory, the sort that will show everyone the feds aren’t all-powerful. They’ll show that they can fight back, and other people can too.”
It made sense, in a horrible way. “How many?” Jericho asked. “How soon?”
Wade’s attention was all on Jericho, then, and for a moment only the two of them mattered. “Too many,” Wade said, his gaze intent and almost desperate. “Too many, and too damn soon. You need to get the hell out of here, Jay. This isn’t your fight.”
“How many is too many?” Kay demanded, stepping up beside Jericho. “I need details, Wade.”
“You need to get your ass out of here, is what you need,” he told her, but she didn’t move, and he shook his head in disgust. “The vans that left Tennant’s ranch heading for Helena were empty, or just had noncombatants in them. The fighters stayed in the barn where their heat would blend in with the cattle and wouldn’t show up on infrared.”
“Why would there be cattle in the barn at this time of year?” Jericho asked.
“Good question,” Wade said with a shake of his head. “Maybe if the FBI had any ranchers working for them, someone would have asked that. As it is? No one asked.”
“Where are you getting this information from?” Hockley asked. He stepped forward to stand beside Kay and looked as if he was resisting the urge to slap a pair of handcuffs on Wade. Possibly they’d never spoken before without Wade being under arrest.
Wade directed his answer to Jericho. “Sam Tennant’s cousin is Serissa Gowley, and she’s been working days out at the ranch, cleaning up after the newcomers. I talked to Larry Winston who’s tight with Serissa, and she got a message to Sam. He managed to give me a call.”
“And he’s used you as a conduit to Jericho in the past,” Hockley said. “This came far too easily, too quickly. He knew what you were going to do with the information he gave you; Sam Tennant is setting us up.”
“Sam Tennant is scared shitless,” Wade retorted, finally looking Hockley in the eye. “He’s a big talker, but he didn’t want to attack the feds, and he sure as hell doesn’t want to storm the county jail. His whole mission has been to support local power against the feds, not go to war with people he grew up with.”
Wade turned back to Jericho. “I’m not stupid, Jay. I’m not being fooled, and I’m not lying. This is going to happen. All the guys from the compound, plus some extras on the way. The fringe people are down in Helena, but the hard-core fanatics? They’re still up here, and they’re coming to town. Soon.”
“Give me a number, Wade.” Kay’s voice was tight. “And a timeline. What have you got? What details have you got?”
Wade frowned as if her question was an unnecessary distraction. “I’d guess forty or fifty well-armed men. They’ve got a few Humvees too, the real military ones, not the civilian knockoffs, and two of them have turrets. I never got close enough to see what they were carrying up there. On the ground they’ve got grenades, explosives, automatic weapons—what you’d expect from an invading army.” He was back to focusing on Jericho as he said, “It’s too damn much. You need to evacuate this building and call for—I don’t know, the National Guard? You need to call for whoever the hell it is who handles shit like this, because it is way the fuck beyond your pay grade and you know it.”
“I’m calling,” Kay said, holding her phone up as evidence. “We’re getting help.”
“Great,” Wade nodded toward the truck. “You want me to drive you, Jay, or you gonna take your own car?”
“Wade—”
“No,” he said. “No, there is no fucking chance I’m letting you stay here. You hate your goddamn job, and now you want to die for it? No. Get in the goddamn truck.”
Jericho turned to Kayla. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for—not approval, not entreaty. Maybe just reality.
And she gave it to him. “I’m the sheriff. The people of Mosely County elected me, and I swore to uphold the laws. I won’t let them down.” She shrugged, but the nonchalance was clearly put on for his benefit. “You’ve been trying to resign for a while. And you were never elected—you never asked for the public trust. So things are different for you, and if you want to offer your resignation now, I’ll accept it.”
So there it was. Her quiet acceptance gave him permission to walk away and go find a beach with Wade. It was tempting for about half a second, but then he shook his head “Wade, I ca— There’s a point where won’t becomes can’t. You know that. I can’t walk away because I can’t. Not—not if I still want to be me on the other side of all this.”
“Do you still want to be alive on the other side of all this? Fifty well-armed men. Sam said they were leaving the compound when he called me; the commotion of them packing up was what he used as cover. So they’re going to be here soon. These are federal prisoners; the feds might be borrowing your jail, but who the fuck cares? It’s their problem.”
“I took an oath.”
“Fuck your oath!” Wade roared. The volume seemed to startle even him, and he blinked hard before repeating the words at a lower volume. “Fuck it. You don’t care about this job. You don’t care about the damn oath.”
“You’re right,” Jericho admitted. “I don’t care about the job. And you were right before when you said there isn’t much black and white in the world; most things are shades of gray. I don’t like that, maybe, but I get it.” Wade tried to turn away, but Jericho leaned in and waited until their gazes met again. “But this is. There are rules that can be bent, and there are rules that can’t. These assholes ambushed fed— No, wait, it doesn’t matter that they were federal agents, it matters that they were human beings going out to ask some questions and make sure people were safe. They weren’t a threat, and three of them died because some losers with guns wanted to make a point. And now some other losers with guns want to make another point by busting them loose? Fuck, no, Wade. I can’t stand back and let that happen. Not because I’m a cop, but because I’m a human being.”
“Stand back today and I swear I’ll help you track them down afterward. The odds are against you now, but once the feds are here, you’ll be on the strong side again. We can tidy the whole thing up later; we’ll catch them all again, and it’ll be good as new.”
“You think they haven’t got escape routes planned? Through all these trees, all these mountains? I spent too damn long in Afghanistan trying to track the enemy through mountains and trees—best terrain in the world for someone trying to disappear. The border just makes it all that much easier. They cross the line, hide out up there in someone else’s forest and mountains, and then cross back down when they’re ready to cause more trouble. Ready to murder more people who were just trying to do their damn jobs. It’s not right, and you know it.”
“Fuck what’s right. Fuck every goddamn thing that isn’t you and me. I’ll leave with you this time, I swear I will. Get in that truck with me and we’ll drive.” He stepped closer, lowered his voice. “We won’t look back. It’ll all be brand-new, just you and me. No more cops and robbers, no more games.” His tone was level, but his eyes? Oh god, his eyes. Jericho had never seen Wade like this, never seen him so open, so honest. Never seen him beg. And he was doing it in front of two DEA agents, people who’d never seen any weakness from him before.
